It’s tempting to think that cycling for weight loss is so elementary a concept it requires no elaboration. Ride more and make a few changes to diet and lifestyle, and you’re on your way, right? But of course it’s not that ­simple, particularly if you’re a beginner or are riding with purpose for the first time. Who better, then, to share strategies for success than Bicycling readers who have shed anywhere from 20 to 230 pounds? These folks discarded the fad diets and took to the roads and grocery aisles to figure out what works.

When he weighed 325, Mark Morales discovered that being heavy meant carrying more than just the excess pounds. As a field-service engineer in the oil and gas division for Siemens, he splits his time between the road and his home office. Between the sedentary work and constantly eating out, Morales became mired in unhealthy routines. “You’re just mucking along,” he says. “You have no energy and you realize something’s got to change.” His size weighed heavily on his psyche: “You get on an airplane and you can see people thinking, Please don’t sit next to me.”

So Morales decided in August 2010 to make a change. Cycling was a natural choice because it had been a childhood passion—he and his friends used to spend entire days tearing up the roads. “I used to read BMX magazines when I was younger, thinking I may race someday,” he recalls. It wasn’t so hard to imagine riding a mountain bike. So he changed his diet—eliminating alcohol and empty calories like pizza—took up his friends’ advice that he buy a Giant Trance X2, and hit the trails.

What Mark Has Learned
• “To get big and stay big,” he says, “you have to eat big.” Aim for five smaller, healthier meals rather than three large ones.
• Park your car at the far end of the lot at work and the store, for what Morales refers to as “accidental exercise.”
• Exercise at least 60 minutes a day, but at different intensity levels. Mix in recovery days to maximize your gains.
• “I stopped drinking alcohol and began avoiding bread, pizza, and all those things we know we shouldn't eat.”

Cycling was ideal because he had bad knees. “It’s low-impact exercise, and I can ride from the house or use a trainer when the weather is bad or it’s dark,” Morales says. Still, his journey included ups and downs that went well beyond the hilly paths. As he locked in on riding, he had big weight-loss weeks and stretches where he faltered. But the overall results were unmistakable. The pounds melted away over about six months, and he decided to try out an aluminum Giant Defy road bike, which allowed him to leave for rides right from his house instead of driving to the park trails. He still rides the mountain bike and his Giant on a trainer on rainy days. For good weather he purchased what he describes as his “pride and joy”—a 2012 Specialized S-Works Tarmac.

He has dropped to 180 in the past two-plus years, and found that returning to his childhood passion lightened his soul as well. “Even though you’re tired, your legs hurt, even your butt a little bit, you have a smile on your face,” he says. (Read Bike Your Butt Off to find out what he means!)

Morales recently attended a climbing camp organized by Carmichael Training Systems that included a 14-mile ascent. He couldn’t have imagined doing something like that just two years ­earlier. And when he climbed on the plane and found in his assigned seat, he didn’t worry for a moment about the person sitting next to him.

The truth was easy to overlook. Nina Mosby had a busy life: a pregnancy and then the joys and trials of new motherhood—when, she says, she ate like she was still eating for two—and the end of her marriage. She worked long but sedentary hours. Eating on the fly, she grabbed Quarter Pounders and Astro Burgers. But the bubbly­ Mosby didn’t dwell on her size. “After a while,” she says, “you stop taking pictures and don’t ­acknowledge the weight gain.”

Nine years ago, Mosby couldn’t work or giggle away the truth anymore, and the truth was that she weighed 265 pounds. She looked in a mirror and asked, “Where did I go?” ­After a few faltering attempts at weight loss, she went on a ride in 2006 with her son, sister, and nephew on the California boardwalks. She pedaled a Diamondback mountain bike she’d excavated from her garage. The kids pushed her to go to Venice Beach and then Santa Monica—18 miles in all—and something clicked. “I realized, I like this,” she says. “It reminds me of being a kid again.”

What Nina Has Learned
• Ensure your comfort. “I tell everyone in my club to get a bike fit. Don’t just buy a bike for the color!”
• “I always plan a treat for myself—but not food. Something that will help me with a goal, like getting a new bike when I hit 200.”
• Use a food diary to keep yourself honest. “I’ll see that I ate a bag of chips earlier and think, Oh, I can’t eat another bag of chips.”
• As a beginner rider, it’s important to feel like you belong. Mosby’s club sells jerseys in size XXXL because “you have to look the part to be the part.”

She brought the bike for a tune-up, and saw a flyer for the California Coast Classic, an eight-day, 525-mile ride. “Like the brochure said, I wanted to take the ride of a lifetime,” she says. Mosby vowed to train for the 2008 edition. She also promised herself that if she made it to 200 pounds, she’d buy a new road bike.

She struggled at first. “The Ballona Creek Path is 20 miles round-trip,” Mosby says. “I did it twice a week. Any hill or distance put before me was a challenge, so it took me an hour one way.” But people cheered her on: “I would get a lot of, ‘You got this! You’re doing great!’”

That helped her persevere, and she gradually got stronger and lighter. Soon Mosby bought her new bike, a KHS Flite 900, and gained enough fitness to take part in the coastal ride. Her weight has fluctuated a bit: She dipped to 148, rose back to the 170s after dealing with a medical issue, and expects she’ll settle at 165. In 2011 Mosby started She Cycles 2, a no-drop cycling group for beginner women. “I don’t claim to be a licensed coach,” she says, “but I want to share my knowledge with others.”

Her life is as full as ever, but now she likes what she sees when she stops in front of a ­mirror. Where did she go? The answer these days is often simple enough: on a bike ride.

Luke Metcalf started his weight-loss quest on a gym's stationary recumbent. (Billy Delfs)

How do you begin the impossibly long journey of shedding 200-plus pounds? For Kent State student Luke Metcalf, the answer was by riding one mile.

Metcalf had always been a big kid, but it hit him flush in 2010 that weighing 435 pounds could be a roadblock to getting married, starting a family, having a successful career. “I even failed a class freshman year because I didn’t have the stamina to walk 30 minutes across campus,” he says. After taking time off from school, he made a New Year’s resolution to change his life. He went to a gym for the first time in January 2011.

Metcalf was overwhelmed at first, until he found a recumbent bike. “I said to myself, ‘Hey, I used to go on bike rides when I was a kid,’” he recalls. His goal was simply to ride a mile, and he felt he’d achieved something meaningful when he made it. Metcalf tried other machines, but only the bike excited him.

What Luke Has Learned
• “You won’t change unless you decide to make your health your top priority.”
• “To learn about nutrition and to control comfort eating, I saw a dietitian and a psychologist. Learning is key.”
• Think big picture. “This isn’t a diet—it’s a ­lifestyle.”
• Once he altered his diet, he realized he no longer wanted the “junk” he’d been eating before.
• Adopt a “better than zero” mindset. Say you set out for 20 miles. “If you get tired after 15, you can stop—but 15 is still better than zero.”

He kept going to the gym until he’d dropped 90 pounds in six months. In March 2012, his friends prodded him to buy a bike. On a new Diamondback Insight 1 hybrid, he was blown away on his 18-mile maiden voyage. “It was more comfortable and natural and the ride went by so fast because there was such great scenery,” he says. “I never enjoyed nature [before], because of my size. I learned what I’d missed out on.”

He struggled with typical beginner challenges, like sitting on the narrower saddle—an issue he resolved with Cannondale bib shorts. “The most difficult thing was stopping and putting my foot down,” he says. “Sounds silly, but I’d forget and almost fall over.” But Metcalf’s progress was meteoric. His most challenging and longest ride was also his best: Ohio’s Bike MS Pedal to the Point last August. As he reached the last hill on the 164-mile, two-day journey, he thought there was no way he could make it. But he saw a man in a wheelchair holding a sign: “Thank you for riding.” Metcalf powered up the final ascent.

Now at 205, having shed more than half his weight, he is lighter in more ways than one. He’s on his way to a business degree, can ride roller coasters, and has the confidence to bring a date to a movie. “Riding takes me back to a place in childhood,” he says, “when I didn’t have the worries I have now.”

Robbie Ewing traded television for cycling and has lost 165 pounds. (Brady Fontennot)

Robbie Ewing loved TV. The police show NCIS, in particular, was his escape, his chief form of pleasure. And when he hyperextended his knee in an accident at work, beginning a streak of bad fortune that resulted in four surgeries, plus a left-knee replacement, he had an excuse to sit around clutching the remote and snarfing bad food. “I used the knee replacement as a crutch to eat too much and not exercise,” Ewing says.

There was no a-ha moment when cycling appeared to him as an ideal fix. He simply needed to lose weight, and with his wrecked knees, he realized that bicycling represented his best shot. If a director of one of the programs he watched were to film Ewing’s transformation, one key scene undoubtedly would show him walking into a bike shop for the first time. By then, at age 36, he tipped the scales at 403 pounds. “The way those guys in the shop looked at me,” he says, “was priceless.”

What Robbie Has Learned
• “Once I’m done with a meal, I’m done. The kitchen is closed.”
• Pay attention to your body, not what’s left on your plate. “I eat at the dining-room table, not in front of the TV, so when I get full, I stop—even if there is some food left on the plate.”
• When you first set out to ride off extra pounds, resist the urge to do too much too soon. Don’t think about speed or what route you should try. Just pedal easy for some reasonable amount of time—Ewing chose 15 minutes—then turn and ride back.

This was June 2006, and he bought a Cannondale road bike. He lost a little weight by eating better before he was ready to try riding. When he finally set out on a quiet back road, he pedaled for 30 minutes—15 out and 15 back—without worrying about his speed. When he found his knees had held up, he added a few minutes the next time out, and then a few more, until he reached an hour and settled into a routine that included three rides a week. He kept a spreadsheet of his progress, and with this gradual, methodical approach, the pounds fell away.

Liberated from his sofa, Ewing now bounds toward a future that looks vastly different. He has lost 165 pounds and is pushing hard to get under 200. He hopes to ride a century with his dad. He just bought a mountain bike for his son, so they can go out together. He hasn’t seen an episode of NCIS in years. Instead, Ewing sees the dramatic arc of television shows in his own riding. ­After a climb, for example, “you look back and say, ‘man, I just did that!’ And it makes you feel so good about yourself,” he says. “It makes you feel better than watching TV does.”

Scott Trombley has lost 105 pounds and hopes to ride across America. (Charles Harris)

Scott Trombley returned from his first bike ride in years—two decades, actually­—sweating and bleeding. He’d wrecked twice because he failed to disengage his feet from the pedals when he stopped. He had never felt happier.

At 46, he harbored no illusions regarding his situation.­ “To say I was a mess,” he says, “was an understatement.” He weighed 320 pounds ­because of an eating habit that had replaced a ­nicotine habit. He had coronary-artery disease and three stents in his heart, and had entered the early stages of diabetes. “My doctor said to me, ‘If you don’t get off your tail and lose weight, you won’t see your kids graduate,’” he recalls.

He’d tried. He had dieted, and he’d walked and, when he could handle the knee pain, he’d jogged. All to no avail. On a drive after getting his third stent, Trombley passed some cyclists in brightly colored gear. “I said to my wife, ‘I wish I could do that,’” he says. “She said the words that became my motto over the next few years: ‘Why not do it?’” They drove to a shop where he bought a Fuji Roubaix Pro, an XXL jersey, and shorts. Looking like “an overfilled sausage casing”—once again, seeing his situation with a stark clarity—he headed out for the first ride of his new life.

What Scott Has Learned
• Set goals that are ­attainable, and be ­aggressive about seeking help when you hit a roadblock.
• “At first, I focused on riding. I had such a good time on the bike, I didn’t realize the side effect—I was losing weight.”
• Nutritionists can be really helpful. They work with you to solve problems when you’re struggling with your diet.

Trombley began cycling every day. After two weeks of going just a few miles, he bagged 10, then 15, then 20. He rode to work—a 7-mile trek—then gradually widened the return trip until it reached 50. He joined a Saturday group ride and began competing against his times using Strava. Within eight months, he’d ridden 4,000 miles.

Now at 215, he has reduced his blood pressure and cholesterol meds. “I feel better than I have in years,” he says. He’s ridden 100 miles at a clip, and his next challenge is a double century—all to prepare for his ultimate goal, to ride across America. “I met a man at a ride across North Carolina who did it when he was 65,” Trombley says. “He said, ‘If you can ride across the state, you can ride across the country.’” Trombley can see it clearly now.